For a few minutes Mac continued looking over the parapet. Without turning his head, he said to me: "I'll gie ye five poond, if ye'll shoot me through the airm or the fut." When a Scotchman who is getting only a shilling a day offers you five pounds, it is for something very desirable. Before I had a chance to take him up on this handsome offer, my attention was attracted by the appearance of a light just a little in front of where Mac had said the enemy trench was located. I grabbed my gun excitedly.
"Dinna fire, lad," cautioned Mac. "We have a wurrkin' pairty oot just in front. Ye would na hit anything if ye did. 'Tis only wastin' bullets to fire at night."
For almost an hour I continued to watch the light as it moved about. It was a party of Turks, Mac explained, seeking their dead for burial. When I was relieved for a couple of hours' sleep they were still there.
Just where I was posted, the trench was traversed; that is, from the parapet there ran at right angles, for about six feet, a barricade of sandbags, that formed the upright line of a figure T. The angle made by this traverse gave some protection from the wind that swept through the trench. Here I spread my blanket. The night was bitterly cold, and I shivered for lack of an overcoat. In coming away hurriedly from London, I did not take an overcoat with me. In Egypt, it had never occurred to me that I should need one in Gallipoli; and the chance to get one I had lost. But I was too weary to let even the cold keep me awake. In a few minutes I was as sound asleep as if I had been far from all thought of war or trenches.
It seemed to me that I had just got to sleep when I was awakened by a hand shaking my shoulder roughly, and by a voice shouting, "Stand to, laddie." It was Mac. I jumped to my feet, rubbing my eyes.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing's the matter," said Mac. "Every morning at daybreak ye stand to airms for an hour."
I looked along the trench. Every man stood on the firing platform with his bayonet fixed. Daybreak and just about sunset are the times attacks are most likely to take place. At those times the greatest precautions are taken. Dawn was just purpling the range of hills directly in front when word came, "Day duties commence." Periscopes were served out, and placed about ten feet apart along the trench. These are plain oblong tubes of tin, three by six inches, about two feet high. They contain an arrangement of double mirrors, one at the top, and one at the bottom. The top mirror slants backward, and reflects objects in front of it. The one at the bottom slants forward, and reflects the image caught by the top mirror. In the daytime, by using a periscope, a sentry can keep his head below the top of the parapet, while he watches the ground in front. Sometimes, however, a bullet strikes one of the mirrors, and the splintered glass blinds the sentry. It is not an uncommon thing to see a man go to the hospital with his face badly lacerated by periscope glass.
During the daytime, the men who were not watching worked at different "fatigues." Parapets had to be fixed up, trenches deepened, drains and dumps dug, and bomb-proof shelters had to be constructed for the officers. Every few minutes the Turkish batteries opened fire on us, but with very poor success. The navy and our land batteries replied, with what effect we could not tell. Once or twice I put my head up higher than the parapet. Each time I did, I heard the ping of a bullet, as it whizzed past my ear. Once a sniper put five at me in rapid succession. Every one was within a few inches of me, but fortunately on the outside of the parapet. Just before landing in Egypt, we had been served out with large white helmets to protect us from the sun. It did not take us very long to discover that on the Peninsula of Gallipoli these were veritable death traps. Against the landscape they loomed as large as tents; they were simply invitations to the enemy snipers. We soon discarded them for our service caps. The hot sun of a Turkish summer bored down on us, adding to the torment of parched throats and tongues. We were suffering very much from lack of water. The first night we went into the firing line we were issued about a pint of water for each man. It was a week before we got a fresh supply. We had not yet had time to get properly organized, and our only food was hard biscuits, apricot jam, and bully beef; a pretty good ration under ordinary conditions, but, without water, most unpalatable. The flies, too, bothered us incessantly. As soon as a man spread some jam on his biscuits, the flies swarmed upon it, and before he could get it to his mouth it was black with the pests.